Scrolling status bar

Olaoye Sunday · #1 (**permalink**) October 21st, 2009, 10:35 AM

The code for scrolling status bar in chapter 9 didn't work. please help me with a working code.

Old Pedant · #2 (**permalink**) October 22nd, 2009, 07:35 PM

Most of us won't have that beginner's book. If you want help with the code, then show the code.

Olaoye Sunday · #3 (**permalink**) October 23rd, 2009, 07:17 AM

Thanks Old pedant .I tried it but it didn't work. here is the code

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
var message = "Beginning JavaScript from Wrox Press";
var startChar = 0;
var maxLength;

function window_onload()
{
var availWidth = 0;
var spaces = "";
if (typeof window.innerWidth != 'undefined')
{
availWidth = window.innerWidth / 10;
}
else
{
availWidth = document.body.scrollWidth / 10;
}
while (availWidth > 0)
{
spaces = spaces + " ";
availWidth--;
}
message = spaces + message;
maxLength = message.length - 1;
setInterval("scrollMessage()",65);
}
function scrollMessage()
{
window.status = message.substring(startChar);
startChar++;
if (startChar == maxLength)
{
startChar = 0;
}
}
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY LANGUAGE=JavaScript onload="return window_onload()">
<P>Scrolling Status Bar Example</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Old Pedant · #4 (**permalink**) October 23rd, 2009, 04:38 PM

It works fine in MSIE.

Chrome doesn't have a status bar, and FireFox blocks changes to window.status by default (the user must change permissions to allow it to be used). It's a very very old script, so I would guess it only works in MSIE and old versions of Netscape Navigator.

Old Pedant · #5 (**permalink**) October 23rd, 2009, 05:23 PM

Yeah, it says that edition of the book is from year 2000. FireFox and Chrome weren't even close to existing back then. It was intended for MSIE 4 and Netscape 4. You're going to encounter some pretty old and creaky code in that book, so take it with a grain of salt. *PROBABLY* you will find the most compatiblity with MSIE. MSIE version 7 still supports most all the stuff the MSIE 4 did, but you can't say that about most other browsers. I know, I know...you hate MSIE. Hard to blame you, but if you use that book you might not have a better choice.

Olaoye Sunday · #6 (**permalink**) October 29th, 2009, 01:17 PM

Thanks a lot Old pedant.
Pls, can you help me with the scrolling text code that works with Firefox or that is cross-browser.

Need to download code?

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